E-Scape Bio in­stalls per­ma­nent CEO Julie Anne Smith; Fa­ther pass­es reins to son at Al­le­gro Oph­thalmics

→ A year af­ter E-Scape Bio leapt out of stealth mode with some strong back­ing, the San Fran­cis­co up­start is ready to put its work in neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion to a clin­i­cal test. Lead­ing that charge will be Julie Anne Smith, who’s been ap­point­ed to suc­ceed Or­bimed part­ner Leon Chen as CEO. A two-time chief ex­ec­u­tive and biotech vet­er­an, Smith brings ex­pe­ri­ence in small mol­e­cule ther­a­pies and lyso­so­mal stor­age dis­or­ders from her re­cent stints at Nure­dis and Rap­tor Phar­ma. That re­sume checks all the right box­es for E-Scape: While the com­pa­ny launched with a heavy fo­cus on a ge­net­ic ap­proach to tack­ling Alzheimer’s, it has since put that project on the back­burn­er in fa­vor of an S1P5 pro­gram from Ab­b­Vie, which is slat­ed for the clin­ic in 2019.

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